Welcome to snowboarding adidas

This past week adidas Snowboarding launched their debut line of snowboard boots, and outerwear. They invited a few of us media folk up to their campus in Portland, Oregon to check the product, try it out, mingle with the team, and more or less just have a great time. So we did just that.

adidas coming into snowboarding is a pretty big move for them, and for snowboarding as a whole, and by the looks of things they’re doing it right. It’s not everyday that a major player emerges, and a lot of talk as been going around as to if adidas is in it for the right reasons. Well they sure seem to be. Taking a page out of their skateboard line, adidas brought together a world-class team of snowboarders from all over the gauntlet that is professional snowboarding. They’re team consists of Kazu Kokubo, Forest Bailey, Keegan Valaika, Helen Schettini, Eric Jackson, and Jake Blauvelt.

Adidas are also doing it right when it comes to making snowboard product. They realized that they’re a brand that is iconic, and historic, and for their outerwear for this season they played off of that. Their outerwear line, which features a one-piece track suit outwear piece, a few different jackets, ranging from Gore-Tex to 10k waterproofing, as well as pants which feature the same are all black and white. In fact the only color in the entire line is blue, and that’s in the Jake Blauvelt pro model boot, and Eric Jackson’s signature color coat. The boots are comfortable, stylish, and highly functional. But that can be pretty much assumed considering the history that adidas has in footwear.

We talked to adidas global sports marketing manager for snowboarding about why adidas is getting into snowboarding, and this is what he had to say, “ adidas is in snowboarding because essentially they want to be the market leader in sportswear, and they did the math and realized that they’re going to need to be a leader in action sports if they’re going to be the overall leader. Adidas has been successful in skateboarding, and everyone’s seen that and been pretty psyched, so the decision was made a few years ago to get into snowboarding. So a lot of stuff that was learned from the skate program has been used in launching the snow program. People should be psyched on it because the team is built primarily on ‘snowboarders’ snowboarders. There’s also a lot of technology and different things to pull from to make sure the gear is technically sound, like fits and designs. So the stuff is good, and the team riders are a huge part in the design process.”

The start seems good for adidas. They aren’t barging in, and their product and team feel organic and right. And who doesn’t love a good tracksuit, samba combo?